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Article
Publication date: 10 November 2022

Sifeng Liu, Yong Tao, Naiming Xie, Liangyan Tao and Mingli Hu

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the advances in grey system theory research and various application achievements in science and engineering. At the same time, it…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the advances in grey system theory research and various application achievements in science and engineering. At the same time, it commemorates the 40th anniversary of the birth of grey system theory and the 10th anniversary of Grey Systems–Theory and Application.

Design/methodology/approach

Firstly, the innovations of theoretical research in grey system theory were summarized and some of the widely recognized new results are briefly described. By searching and combing the research results of grey system theory in China national knowledge infrastructure (CNKI) database and Web of Science by Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), this paper shows the rapid development trend of grey system theory in the past 40 years, and the successful applications of grey system theory in the fields of social sciences, natural sciences and engineering technologies.

Findings

More than 227 thousands literature were found by input 10 phrases such as grey system, grey number and sequence operator etc. in CNKI database. After entering the new century, the number of grey system papers included in CNKI database is increasing rapidly. Since 2008, more than 10 thousands papers have been included per year and more than 15 thousands papers have been included per year since 2014. Grey system method and model are widely used in physics, chemistry, biology and other fields of natural science, as well as transportation, electric power, machinery and other fields of engineering technology, and a large number of valuable results have been achieved.

Practical implications

It can be seen that the grey system theory plays an important role in promoting China’s scientific and technological progress, innovation and development and high-level talent training from tens of thousands of literatures marked with important national science and technology projects and a large number of grey system literatures published by China’s double first-class universities and double first-class discipline construction universities.

Originality/value

Both innovations of theoretical research and practical application play important role in the growth of new theory. The innovations of theoretical research provide methods and tools for practical application, which is conducive to improve application efficiency and broaden application fields. A large number of practical applications needs have become the source of theoretical innovation and the solid background for the birth of theoretical innovation achievements.

Details

Grey Systems: Theory and Application, vol. 12 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2043-9377

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 17 August 2012

Sifeng Liu, Jeffrey Forrest and Yingjie Yang

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the elementary concepts and fundamental principles of grey systems and the main components of grey systems theory. Also to discuss the…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the elementary concepts and fundamental principles of grey systems and the main components of grey systems theory. Also to discuss the astonishing progress that grey systems theory has made in the world of learning and its wide‐ranging applications in the entire spectrum of science.

Design/methodology/approach

The characteristics of unascertained systems including incomplete information and inaccuracies in data are analysed and four uncertain theories: probability statistics, fuzzy mathematics, grey system and rough set theory are compared. The scientific principle of simplicity and how precise models suffer from inaccuracies are also shown.

Findings

The four uncertain theories, probability statistics, fuzzy mathematics, grey system and rough set theory are examined with different research objects, different basic sets, different methods and procedures, different data requirements, different emphasis, different objectives and different characteristics.

Practical implications

The scientific principle of simplicity and how precise models suffer from inaccuracies are shown. So, precise models are not necessarily an effective means to deal with complex matters, especially in the case that the available information is incomplete and the collected data inaccurate.

Originality/value

The elementary concepts and fundamental principles of grey systems and the main components of grey systems theory are introduced briefly. The reader is given a general picture of grey systems theory as a new method for studying problems where partial information is known, partial information is unknown; especially for uncertain systems with few data points and poor information.

Details

Grey Systems: Theory and Application, vol. 2 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2043-9377

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 August 2015

Delcea Camelia

As the grey systems theory has been used over the time in different economic areas, in the following, a short literature review will be put forward, starting from the usage of…

Abstract

Purpose

As the grey systems theory has been used over the time in different economic areas, in the following, a short literature review will be put forward, starting from the usage of these theory in the supply chain management, decision-making process, financial performance evaluation, credit risk, energy consumption, investment efficiency, etc. The purpose of this paper is to identify some key studies from all the economic areas in which the grey systems can be used in order to open and to bring to the researchers new domains in which they can manifest their interest and in which they can successfully use the methods offered by the grey systems theory.

Design/methodology/approach

Using the search engine offered by the Web of Science, a literature review has been performed for the economic grey systems applications developed over the time on both economic diagnosis and system’s forecasting. In addition, some hybrid grey systems theory – artificial intelligence techniques models have also been presented.

Findings

The grey systems theory has brought its contribution to numerous economic application from various fields such as: supply chain management, decision-making process, financial performance evaluation, credit risk, energy consumption, investment efficiency, firms’ bankruptcy, product development, consumer income, monetization ratio, etc.

Research limitations/implications

The present paper identifies the some of the most representative examples in which the grey theory has been used, but, in the same time, there are a lot of studies that have not been mentioned here due to the lack of space.

Originality/value

Unlike other review papers written on the grey systems theory area, the present paper is only focusing on the economic applications in which this theory has been successfully used, bringing to the reader a general overview on this field and, in the same time, enabling new research perspectives.

Details

Grey Systems: Theory and Application, vol. 5 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2043-9377

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 July 2007

Guo‐Dong Li, Daisuke Yamaguchi and Masatake Nagai

This paper aims to resolve the uncertain problem in suppliers selection chain management system through using the proposed multiple attribute decision‐making (MADM) approach.

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to resolve the uncertain problem in suppliers selection chain management system through using the proposed multiple attribute decision‐making (MADM) approach.

Design/methodology/approach

The approach which combines grey system theory with rough set theory is proposed.

Findings

This proposed approach take advantage of mathematical analysis power of grey system theory and at the same time take advantage of data mining and knowledge discovery power of rough set theory. It will be suitable to decision making under a more uncertain environment.

Originality/value

Provides a viewpoint on the attribute values and attribute weights of rough set decision table for all alternatives are decided by grey number based on grey system theory. The best ideal supplier can be decided by grey relational analysis based on grey number.

Details

Journal of Modelling in Management, vol. 2 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5664

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 November 2015

Dilip Kumar Sen, Saurav Datta and Siba Sankar Mahapatra

Decision making is the task of selecting the most appropriate alternative among a finite set of possible alternatives with respect to some attributes. The attributes may be…

Abstract

Purpose

Decision making is the task of selecting the most appropriate alternative among a finite set of possible alternatives with respect to some attributes. The attributes may be subjective or objective (or combination of both), depending upon the situation; requirements may also be conflicting. In practice, most of the real-world decision-making problems are based on subjective evaluation criteria which are basically ill-defined and vague. Since subjective human judgment bears ambiguity and vagueness in the decision making; application of grey numbers set theory may be proved fruitful in this context. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

Owing to the advantages of grey numbers set theory in tackling subjectivity in decision making; the crisp-TODIM needs to be extended by integrating with grey numbers set theory in order to facilitate decision making consisting of subjective data. Hence, the unified objective of this paper is to propose a grey-based TODIM approach in the context of decision making.

Findings

Application potential of grey-TODIM has been demonstrated through a case empirical robot selection problem. Result obtained thereof, has also been compared to that of existing grey-based decision support systems available in literature.

Originality/value

Application potential of grey-based decision support systems (grey-TOPSIS, grey analysis, grey-MOORA) have been highlighted in available literature resource. However, the shortcoming of these approaches is that they do not consider decision-makers’ risk attitude while decision making. TODIM method is derived from the philosophy of Cumulative Prospect Theory (CPT) which considers risk averting attitude of the decision maker in case of gain and risk seeking attitude in case of loss, while comparing dominance between two alternatives with respect to a particular criterion. Hence, this paper contributes a mathematical foundation of TODIM coupled with grey numbers set theory for logical decision making.

Details

Grey Systems: Theory and Application, vol. 5 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2043-9377

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 2016

Sifeng Liu, Yingjie Yang, Naiming Xie and Jeffrey Forrest

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the progress in grey system research during 2000-2015, so as to present some important new concepts, models, methods and a new framework…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the progress in grey system research during 2000-2015, so as to present some important new concepts, models, methods and a new framework of grey system theory.

Design/methodology/approach

The new thinking, new models and new methods of grey system theory and their applications are presented in this paper. It includes algorithm rules of grey numbers based on the “kernel” and the degree of greyness of grey numbers, the concept of general grey numbers, the synthesis axiom of degree of greyness of grey numbers and their operations; the general form of buffer operators of grey sequence operators; the four basic models of grey model GM(1,1), such as even GM, original difference GM, even difference GM, discrete GM and the suitable sequence type of each basic model, and suitable range of most used grey forecasting models; the similarity degree of grey incidences, the closeness degree of grey incidences and the three-dimensional absolute degree of grey incidence of grey incidence analysis models; the grey cluster model based on center-point and end-point mixed triangular whitenization functions; the multi-attribute intelligent grey target decision model, the two stages decision model with grey synthetic measure of grey decision models; grey game models, grey input-output models of grey combined models; and the problems of robust stability for grey stochastic time-delay systems of neutral type, distributed-delay type and neutral distributed-delay type of grey control, etc. And the new framework of grey system theory is given as well.

Findings

The problems which remain for further studying are discussed at the end of each section. The reader could know the general picture of research and developing trend of grey system theory from this paper.

Practical implications

A lot of successful practical applications of the new models to solve various problems have been found in many different areas of natural science, social science and engineering, including spaceflight, civil aviation, information, metallurgy, machinery, petroleum, chemical industry, electrical power, electronics, light industries, energy resources, transportation, medicine, health, agriculture, forestry, geography, hydrology, seismology, meteorology, environment protection, architecture, behavioral science, management science, law, education, military science, etc. These practical applications have brought forward definite and noticeable social and economic benefits. It demonstrates a wide range of applicability of grey system theory, especially in the situation where the available information is incomplete and the collected data are inaccurate.

Originality/value

The reader is given a general picture of grey systems theory as a new model system and a new framework for studying problems where partial information is known; especially for uncertain systems with few data points and poor information. The problems remaining for further studying are identified at the end of each section.

Details

Grey Systems: Theory and Application, vol. 6 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2043-9377

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 January 2013

Erkan Kose, Mehmet Kabak and Hakan Aplak

Personnel selection is an important process in management due to the high cost of unfavorable employee procurement. The multi criteria nature and the presence of both qualitative…

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Abstract

Purpose

Personnel selection is an important process in management due to the high cost of unfavorable employee procurement. The multi criteria nature and the presence of both qualitative and quantitative factors make it considerably more complex. The purpose of this paper is to propose a grey theory‐based hybrid approach to solve personnel selection problems in uncertain environments.

Design/methodology/approach

The work procedure is as follows: first, grey analytic network process (GANP) is applied to calculate selection criteria weights and then candidates are ranked by using grey possibility degrees. Finally, an example of a selection problem of sniper for a military unit was used to illustrate the proposed approach.

Findings

The analyses of the results show that grey theory‐based methods have enormous chance of success for personnel selection problems in uncertain situations.

Originality/value

Although there are some applications for personnel selection problems that used grey system theory in the literature, the combination of GANP and grey possibility degrees is used for personnel selection problem in this study.

Article
Publication date: 6 July 2021

Xu Peng, Xiang Li and Xiao Yang

In order to more accurately predict the dynamics of the e-commerce market and increase the comprehensive value of the circular e-commerce industry, proposes to use Grey system…

Abstract

Purpose

In order to more accurately predict the dynamics of the e-commerce market and increase the comprehensive value of the circular e-commerce industry, proposes to use Grey system theory to analyze the circular economy of the e-commerce market.

Design/methodology/approach

Construct a Grey system theory model, analyze the big data of e-commerce and circular economy of the e-commerce market and predict the development potential of China's e-commerce market.

Findings

The results show that the Grey system theory model can play an important role in the data analysis of circular economy of the e-commerce market.

Originality/value

Use Grey model to analyze e-commerce data, discover e-commerce market rules and problems and then optimize e-commerce market.

Details

Journal of Enterprise Information Management, vol. 35 no. 4/5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1741-0398

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 22 October 2019

Li Xuemei, Yun Cao, Junjie Wang, Yaoguo Dang and Yin Kedong

Research on grey systems is becoming more sophisticated, and grey relational and prediction analyses are receiving close review worldwide. Particularly, the application of grey

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Abstract

Purpose

Research on grey systems is becoming more sophisticated, and grey relational and prediction analyses are receiving close review worldwide. Particularly, the application of grey systems in marine economics is gaining importance. The purpose of this paper is to summarize and review literature on grey models, providing new directions in their application in the marine economy.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper organized seminal studies on grey systems published by Chinese core journal database – CNKI, Web of Science and Elsevier from 1982 to 2018. After searching the aforementioned database for the said duration, the authors used the CiteSpace visualization tools to analyze them.

Findings

The authors sorted the studies according to their countries/regions, institutions, keywords and categories using the CiteSpace tool; analyzed current research characteristics on grey models; and discussed their possible applications in marine businesses, economy, scientific research and education, marine environment and disasters. Finally, the authors pointed out the development trend of grey models.

Originality/value

Although researches are combining grey theory with fractals, neural networks, fuzzy theory and other methods, the applications, in terms of scope, have still not met the demand. With the increasingly in-depth research in marine economics and management, international marine economic research has entered a new period of development. Grey theory will certainly attract scholars’ attention, and its role in marine economy and management will gain considerable significance.

Details

Marine Economics and Management, vol. 2 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2516-158X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 August 2009

Sifeng Liu, Jeffrey Forrest and Robert Vallee

The purpose of this paper is to present the scientific background from which grey systems theory came into being, the astonishing progress that grey systems theory has made in the…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present the scientific background from which grey systems theory came into being, the astonishing progress that grey systems theory has made in the world of learning and its wide‐ranging applications in the entire spectrum of science.

Design/methodology/approach

The grey uncertainty is compared with other kinds of uncertainty such as stochastic uncertainty, unascertainty, fuzzy and rough uncertainty.

Findings

The advances in grey systems theory and its various successful applications are introduced individually by algorithms of grey numbers and grey algebraic systems, grey dynamic models and grey predictions, grey optimization analysis for decision making, grey control models.

Research limitations/implications

Many scientific theories require the unremitting efforts of several generations of people and have gone through hundreds of years before reaching maturity and perfection. Grey systems theory is still in its growth period. So, it is unavoidable that there exist immature and imperfect parts in the theory.

Originality/value

Grey systems theory is a new method for studying problems of uncertainty with few data points and poor information. This new theory studies small samples and systems with poor information, which have partial information known, partial information unknown. It describes adequately and monitors effectively systems' operations and evolutions through extracting valuable information from the little known information. Grey systems theory comes into being along with the development of modern systems science and uncertainty systems theories and methods. It is also a result of deepened perceptivity about uncertain systems.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 38 no. 7/8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 26000